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Keyword Density
- By Scott Lindsay
- Published 05/30/2007
- Keywords
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Scott Lindsay
Scott Lindsay is a web developer and entrepreneur. He is the founder of HighPowerSites and many other web projects. HighPowerSites is the easiest do-it-yourself website builder on the web. No programming or design skill required. Get your own website online in just 5 minutes with http://HighPowerSites.com at: http://www.highpowersites.com
View all articles by Scott LindsayKeywords… always keywords! It’s amazing how much of a headache they can be. You spend hours and hours researching, planning, making lists, and calculating keyword density, for what? To be successful online, to reach those high SERPs all webmasters and online entrepreneurs dream about: to be number one.
You are ready to pay the price; you are ready to choose a company that promises you top ten results guaranteed. Guess what? There are no warranties; there is no keyword secret formula. You want to be number one? That’s hard to achieve, but not impossible. You can do it on your own. You’ll need to learn a lot, to work day and night, to invest your time in this effort. But you will succeed.
So here you go: choose your keywords wisely. Use them even wiser.
To use keywords means to introduce them into the content of your web pages in a natural manner: not too many, not too few…
Is there a keyword density secret formula? Nope.
There are, however, some guidelines.
No keywords = no placement in the SERPs (search engine result pages). No placement in the SERPs = no traffic. No traffic = no revenue. No revenue = you don’t have a business. So invest time and effort in choosing and using keywords.
It is important that your keywords appear in the META tags (page title, meta title, meta description, meta keywords) and the content of the page. However, too many keywords could get your site penalized for spamm
Each search engine places different importance on keyword density. Google requires a maximum of 3%, Yahoo! needs a 5-6%. Is it safe to go beyond Google’s guidelines? Not really. Then what? Place importance on the keyword modifications: bold, italic, type size, underline, highlight, hyperlink. Take care where on page you place the main keywords: the heading, at the beginning of your first paragraph, at the end of the last sentence of your text, in subheadings, in hyperlinks and so on. You do this in a natural, readable manner and you cannot fail.
So don’t target too many keywords or keywords phrases: one or two will do. You could even target three if you have a lot of content on one page, but not more. Don’t optimize your page for fast results, but for lasting results. Pay attention: if you want to be competitive, focus on one keyword per page and keep its page density to the minimum.
You have a public relations website. Then “public relations” is your keyword phrase. Start optimizing for it. Create sub pages to support the home page optimize those for keyword variations and some related low competitive keywords. Keep your content simple, relevant, useful…and don’t stuff it with keywords. That’s all you need to know about keyword density.
Not convinced? How about this: Google will change its algorithms soon. Why don’t you run a keyword density checker on your website and have a chat with your SEO team or expert? You wouldn’t like Google to ban you for keyword stuffing, would you?